Book Review: Swedes in Chicago: A Demographic and Social Study of the 1846-1880 Immigration by Ulf Beijbom

BOOK REVIEWS
Ulf Beijbom. Swedes in Chicago: A Demographic and Social Study of the
1846-1880 Immigration. Chicago: Chicago Historical Society and Uppsala
University, 1971. pp. 381. $12.50.
At the turn of the century Chicago was second only to Stockholm
itself in the size of its Swedish population. That statistic will surprise
only those people who persist in equating Swedish immigration with the
American prairie. Not that the newcomers came from cities—75 percent
of Sweden's immigrants, between 1850 and 1920, came from the country­side.
But as the rate of urbanization accelerated in America, so did the
proportion of American Swedes living in cities. In 1890 the figure stood
at one-third; by 1910 it had risen to three-fifths. By the time of the
Great Depression the rural-farm part of the American Swedish population
was a mere 17 percent.
Therein lies the significance of Ulf Beijbom's Swedes in Chicago.
Breaking loose from the pioneer stereotype, he calls attention to the
neglected urban dimension of the Swedish experience in America. His
monograph contains a wealth of information, laboriously culled (but
attractively presented) from census data, city directories, school reports,
church records, newspapers, and still other primary sources. But Dr.
Beijbom, who heads Sweden's Emigrant Institute and belongs to Uppsala
University's research project on Sweden and America after 1860, goes
beyond mere fact-gathering. Familiar with the best interpretive works
about America's massive ingathering of the world's peoples, he relates
his specialized study to a larger, more generalized framework. The result
is an important contribution not only to Swedish-American studies but
to our knowledge and understanding of the forces that transformed
America: immigration, industrialization, and urbanization.
The foundations of Chicago's Swedish-American community were laid
between 1850 and 1880, but that isn't the only reason Dr. Beijbom
limits himself to those thirty years. They are the only years for which
the manuscript schedules of the federal census are available. Happily, in
his own Sweden, the author also made use of sources relating to the
regions from which Chicago's Swedes emigrated. They were agricultural
regions, subject to hard times and even famine, and marked by revivalist
influences.
The life that the immigrants built in the Midwest's capital city reflected
their origins. They were not only predominantly rural, as Dr. Beijbom's
elaborate charts and tables reveal, but also young and disproportionately
female. This last explains why Chicago's textile industry had a large
number of Swedish seamstresses, and why there were more Swedish
domestics working in the city's homes than any other ethnic group. As
for the men, apart from the tailors and carpenters among them who
entered the textile and building trades, most of them took jobs for which
193
they had not been trained. It was through the working classes, in short,
that the peasant-artisan founders of the Swedish-American community
entered the city's economy.
But workers seldom provided leadership for the community. That role
fell, Dr. Beijbom convincingly points out, to a minority of immigrants of
middle-class and even noble backgrounds. They were disproportionately
important not only in secular activities but in religious affairs as well.
Indeed, according to the handful of Swedish-American radicals, the
religious and secular leaders were guilty of trying to transplant to
America what the radicals called Sweden's "rotten-class society."
There was a more important cleavage still, as Dr. Beijbom makes clear
in his chapters on the religious, intellectual, and social life of the com­munity.
More specifically, there was a struggle for power, and for the
loyalty of the community, between evangelical ministers and liberal
bourgeois leaders. Fully to do justice to Dr. Beijbom's account would re­quire
more space than a review of this kind calls for. It is enough to say
that the author recreates the struggle as it revealed itself in the close
to dozen newspapers that were founded by 1880, and also in associational
activities having to do with education, culture, athletics, recreation,
the protection of immigrants, and the care of the poor and the sick.
Of all the surprising things Dr. Beijbom has uncovered, none is more
striking than the political activism of Chicago's Swedes. It has been
commonly assumed that they lagged behind not only the Irish but the
Germans as well in this respect. Dr. Beijbom's evidence compels us to
rethink that assumption. The Swedes moved quickly into the Republican
party, organized their own political clubs, and got out the vote for their
own kind, who were elected to local, county, and statewide offices. Presi­dent
Lincoln, in recognition of his debt to Swedish-American voters, ap­pointed
one of their Chicago leaders to a consulship in Germany.
Since Dr. Beijbom ends his account in 1880, it's a matter of speculation
as to why the city's Swedish-Americans are no longer politically im­portant.
Perhaps the answer lies with an even more tantalizing thought
that the author leaves us with. He remarks that after 1920 Chicago's
Swedes no longer lived in the original neighborhoods and had become
"assimilated." Perhaps their movement to the outer limits of the city
and beyond meant that they had indeed become part of an undifferentiated
body of Chicagoans; but Dr. Beijbom offers no documentation in support
of that conclusion. What he demonstrates is that the 19th century Swedish-
Americans whom he studied were intensely self-conscious of their dif­ferences
with "Americans," Danes, Norwegians, Germans, Irish, Italians,
and still other ethnic groups. If the descendants of Chicago's Swedes are
no longer self-conscious in the same ways—and few are—the historian
has to show how and why, in the past, they became so.
But that is a problem for at least one other monograph. If it's attempted,
one can only hope that it will be as good as Dr. Beijbom's. He brought
to his subject an analytical mind, a sensitivity to the feelings and aspira­tions
of ordinary people, and a knowledge of relevant sources on both
194
sides of the Atlantic. How his work reads in the original I cannot say,
but the translation, by Donald Brown, is very readable indeed.
The University of Chicago ARTHUR MANN
Harald S. Naess and Sigmund Skard, Cdr., AMERICANA NORVEGICA,
Vol. HI, Studies in Scandinavian-American Interrelations. Oslo, Norway:
The American Institute, 1971. 390 pp.
The wide variety of subject matter included in this volume defies sum­marizing
or critical analysis. The editors have cast a wide net, including
articles dealing with historical episodes, the influence of Scandinavian
authors in the United States and the influence of the United States on
Scandinavian writers, and briefer pieces treating significant problems
of a linguistic nature. Supposedly some degree of unity is achieved in the
fact that each deals with an aspect of cross cultural relations. Or perhaps
the more sound assumption may be that to those who have an interest
in either Scandinavia or North America any and every aspect of relations
between the two will contribute to a broader understanding of the total
network of ties.
Skepticism as to the appropriateness of lumping such a disparate array
into one volume is not to suggest that the individual pieces are lacking
in merit. The reverse is true. There is a professional scholarly quality in
all of the articles and many of them have both unusual merit and deal with
significant topics in a significant manner. Among those treating of histori­cal
aspects, Franklin Scott's 'The Dual Heritage of the Scandinavian Immi­grant"
is especially readable and highly perceptive. Scott shows great
insight into the dual qualities that characterized the life of the immigrant.
Kenneth Bjork's "Bella Coola," an account of the migration of a group
of Norwegian settlers in Minnesota to a remote part of British Columbia is
of the same high quality. Bjork writes with restraint, permitting the facts
to tell the story of how a small group of most ordinary rural people
muster optimism, courage, and a spirit of endurance worthy of admira­tion,
and of their average and lackluster success. Most interesting from
the point of view of the historian is Sten Carlsson's "Scandinavian Poli­ticians
in Minnesota Around the Turn of the Century." The author employs
quantitative methods of research to great advantage and focuses attention
on the political importance of the Scandinavian communities rather than
on the political leaders. Equally interesting is the historical account of the
gradual evolution of Norwegian historical societies culminating in the
establishment of the Norwegian-American Historical Association.
This volume includes a number of studies dealing with the influence of
the new world on leading Scandinavian writers. These careful studies
reveal that developments in the western hemisphere made a significant
impact on Scandinavian literature.
The volume is published in honor of Einar Haugen, the well known
and very distinguished professor of Scandinavian languages formerly
at the University of Wisconsin and now at Harvard University. It is a
fine tribute to a most able scholar. Paul A. Varg
195

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BOOK REVIEWS
Ulf Beijbom. Swedes in Chicago: A Demographic and Social Study of the
1846-1880 Immigration. Chicago: Chicago Historical Society and Uppsala
University, 1971. pp. 381. $12.50.
At the turn of the century Chicago was second only to Stockholm
itself in the size of its Swedish population. That statistic will surprise
only those people who persist in equating Swedish immigration with the
American prairie. Not that the newcomers came from cities—75 percent
of Sweden's immigrants, between 1850 and 1920, came from the country­side.
But as the rate of urbanization accelerated in America, so did the
proportion of American Swedes living in cities. In 1890 the figure stood
at one-third; by 1910 it had risen to three-fifths. By the time of the
Great Depression the rural-farm part of the American Swedish population
was a mere 17 percent.
Therein lies the significance of Ulf Beijbom's Swedes in Chicago.
Breaking loose from the pioneer stereotype, he calls attention to the
neglected urban dimension of the Swedish experience in America. His
monograph contains a wealth of information, laboriously culled (but
attractively presented) from census data, city directories, school reports,
church records, newspapers, and still other primary sources. But Dr.
Beijbom, who heads Sweden's Emigrant Institute and belongs to Uppsala
University's research project on Sweden and America after 1860, goes
beyond mere fact-gathering. Familiar with the best interpretive works
about America's massive ingathering of the world's peoples, he relates
his specialized study to a larger, more generalized framework. The result
is an important contribution not only to Swedish-American studies but
to our knowledge and understanding of the forces that transformed
America: immigration, industrialization, and urbanization.
The foundations of Chicago's Swedish-American community were laid
between 1850 and 1880, but that isn't the only reason Dr. Beijbom
limits himself to those thirty years. They are the only years for which
the manuscript schedules of the federal census are available. Happily, in
his own Sweden, the author also made use of sources relating to the
regions from which Chicago's Swedes emigrated. They were agricultural
regions, subject to hard times and even famine, and marked by revivalist
influences.
The life that the immigrants built in the Midwest's capital city reflected
their origins. They were not only predominantly rural, as Dr. Beijbom's
elaborate charts and tables reveal, but also young and disproportionately
female. This last explains why Chicago's textile industry had a large
number of Swedish seamstresses, and why there were more Swedish
domestics working in the city's homes than any other ethnic group. As
for the men, apart from the tailors and carpenters among them who
entered the textile and building trades, most of them took jobs for which
193
they had not been trained. It was through the working classes, in short,
that the peasant-artisan founders of the Swedish-American community
entered the city's economy.
But workers seldom provided leadership for the community. That role
fell, Dr. Beijbom convincingly points out, to a minority of immigrants of
middle-class and even noble backgrounds. They were disproportionately
important not only in secular activities but in religious affairs as well.
Indeed, according to the handful of Swedish-American radicals, the
religious and secular leaders were guilty of trying to transplant to
America what the radicals called Sweden's "rotten-class society."
There was a more important cleavage still, as Dr. Beijbom makes clear
in his chapters on the religious, intellectual, and social life of the com­munity.
More specifically, there was a struggle for power, and for the
loyalty of the community, between evangelical ministers and liberal
bourgeois leaders. Fully to do justice to Dr. Beijbom's account would re­quire
more space than a review of this kind calls for. It is enough to say
that the author recreates the struggle as it revealed itself in the close
to dozen newspapers that were founded by 1880, and also in associational
activities having to do with education, culture, athletics, recreation,
the protection of immigrants, and the care of the poor and the sick.
Of all the surprising things Dr. Beijbom has uncovered, none is more
striking than the political activism of Chicago's Swedes. It has been
commonly assumed that they lagged behind not only the Irish but the
Germans as well in this respect. Dr. Beijbom's evidence compels us to
rethink that assumption. The Swedes moved quickly into the Republican
party, organized their own political clubs, and got out the vote for their
own kind, who were elected to local, county, and statewide offices. Presi­dent
Lincoln, in recognition of his debt to Swedish-American voters, ap­pointed
one of their Chicago leaders to a consulship in Germany.
Since Dr. Beijbom ends his account in 1880, it's a matter of speculation
as to why the city's Swedish-Americans are no longer politically im­portant.
Perhaps the answer lies with an even more tantalizing thought
that the author leaves us with. He remarks that after 1920 Chicago's
Swedes no longer lived in the original neighborhoods and had become
"assimilated." Perhaps their movement to the outer limits of the city
and beyond meant that they had indeed become part of an undifferentiated
body of Chicagoans; but Dr. Beijbom offers no documentation in support
of that conclusion. What he demonstrates is that the 19th century Swedish-
Americans whom he studied were intensely self-conscious of their dif­ferences
with "Americans," Danes, Norwegians, Germans, Irish, Italians,
and still other ethnic groups. If the descendants of Chicago's Swedes are
no longer self-conscious in the same ways—and few are—the historian
has to show how and why, in the past, they became so.
But that is a problem for at least one other monograph. If it's attempted,
one can only hope that it will be as good as Dr. Beijbom's. He brought
to his subject an analytical mind, a sensitivity to the feelings and aspira­tions
of ordinary people, and a knowledge of relevant sources on both
194
sides of the Atlantic. How his work reads in the original I cannot say,
but the translation, by Donald Brown, is very readable indeed.
The University of Chicago ARTHUR MANN
Harald S. Naess and Sigmund Skard, Cdr., AMERICANA NORVEGICA,
Vol. HI, Studies in Scandinavian-American Interrelations. Oslo, Norway:
The American Institute, 1971. 390 pp.
The wide variety of subject matter included in this volume defies sum­marizing
or critical analysis. The editors have cast a wide net, including
articles dealing with historical episodes, the influence of Scandinavian
authors in the United States and the influence of the United States on
Scandinavian writers, and briefer pieces treating significant problems
of a linguistic nature. Supposedly some degree of unity is achieved in the
fact that each deals with an aspect of cross cultural relations. Or perhaps
the more sound assumption may be that to those who have an interest
in either Scandinavia or North America any and every aspect of relations
between the two will contribute to a broader understanding of the total
network of ties.
Skepticism as to the appropriateness of lumping such a disparate array
into one volume is not to suggest that the individual pieces are lacking
in merit. The reverse is true. There is a professional scholarly quality in
all of the articles and many of them have both unusual merit and deal with
significant topics in a significant manner. Among those treating of histori­cal
aspects, Franklin Scott's 'The Dual Heritage of the Scandinavian Immi­grant"
is especially readable and highly perceptive. Scott shows great
insight into the dual qualities that characterized the life of the immigrant.
Kenneth Bjork's "Bella Coola," an account of the migration of a group
of Norwegian settlers in Minnesota to a remote part of British Columbia is
of the same high quality. Bjork writes with restraint, permitting the facts
to tell the story of how a small group of most ordinary rural people
muster optimism, courage, and a spirit of endurance worthy of admira­tion,
and of their average and lackluster success. Most interesting from
the point of view of the historian is Sten Carlsson's "Scandinavian Poli­ticians
in Minnesota Around the Turn of the Century." The author employs
quantitative methods of research to great advantage and focuses attention
on the political importance of the Scandinavian communities rather than
on the political leaders. Equally interesting is the historical account of the
gradual evolution of Norwegian historical societies culminating in the
establishment of the Norwegian-American Historical Association.
This volume includes a number of studies dealing with the influence of
the new world on leading Scandinavian writers. These careful studies
reveal that developments in the western hemisphere made a significant
impact on Scandinavian literature.
The volume is published in honor of Einar Haugen, the well known
and very distinguished professor of Scandinavian languages formerly
at the University of Wisconsin and now at Harvard University. It is a
fine tribute to a most able scholar. Paul A. Varg
195